


After Spring

by courtts



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Hanahaki Disease, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 20:16:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9511592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/courtts/pseuds/courtts
Summary: It's the little changes that bother Akaashi when Bokuto returns to school after his surgery.





	

_The Hanahaki Disease is an illness born from one-sided love, where the patient throws up and coughs up flower petals when their love is unrequited. The infection can be removed through surgery, but the feelings disappear along with the petals._

 

When Bokuto missed three days of school for a surprise operation, nobody batted an eye. At Fukurodani Academy, at least, Hanahaki Disease was a common occurrence among the student population. In Akaashi's class alone, two girls had already underwent surgery to cure themselves of the illness, and it wasn't even summer break.

Doctors recommended that their patients immediately confess to their person of affection once they started showing symptoms of the disease. If their love was unreturned, treatment for early stage Hanahaki would be painless and non-invasive: take a pill every night for a week and the petals, along with the feelings, would subside. Unsurprisingly, most people Akaashi's age waited far too late to receive treatment, when their coughing had exacerbated to the point where they needed surgery to rid themselves of the flower growing within them.

But Bokuto's case wasn't that dramatic. He supposedly told everyone he missed school because of a ruptured appendix at the most inopportune of times. The surgery was relatively quick and complication-free: he spent one night at the hospital, then two days at home resting before he came back to school. When he returned to the gym for the first time since his absence, Akaashi could already feel the ever-familiar headache coming on.

"Akaaashiiiiii! Did you miss me?!" Bokuto shouted. He was as loud and boisterous as one could get at seven in the morning on a Monday.

"You were only gone for three days, Bokuto-san," Akaashi said.

Bokuto's jaw dropped, Akaashi rolled his eyes, and the team got on with practice as usual.

At first, Akaashi didn't think much of Bokuto's surgery and the aftermath. Bokuto still experienced mood swings, from manic highs to sinking lows, no fewer than five times in a single practice. He still barged into Akaashi's second year classroom, pleading to borrow a couple hundred yen to buy a sandwich from the cafeteria, making empty promises to pay him back soon. He still pestered Akaashi for homework help on subjects he should've been proficient in by last year, only pretending to pay attention before blatantly copying down the answers from Akaashi's notes.

But over the next few weeks, Akaashi sensed that something was off with Bokuto's behavior. Not necessarily in his words or mannerisms, but in his actions. He decided it was what Bokuto _didn't_ do that bothered him the most.

Akaashi was no longer guilted into staying late after practice, tossing endless balls for Bokuto to spike into the ground. He was free to eat the lunch he had packed for himself for the school day, because Bokuto no longer returned from the cafeteria with an unwanted sub especially for him. He would set his alarm, rest his phone on his nightstand, and get a full seven hours of sleep without being woken up at one in the morning by frantic texts from Bokuto, asking for help with math homework that was due the next day.

Logically, Akaashi should've felt peaceful, even relieved that Bokuto no longer annoyed him at the most inconvenient of times. Instead he felt lonely, as if a key person in his life was no longer with him.

The surgery removed Bokuto's most distinctive qualities and replaced them with something so foreign they made him feel like a different person.

Like an acquaintance.

If Akaashi could revert Bokuto back to how he was pre-surgery, he would do it in a heartbeat. He knew just what he needed to say, just what he needed to do in order to have a different outcome than now.

Akaashi never told anyone, but a few days before the operation, he walked in on Bokuto on his knees, vomiting flower petals in the locker room after practice. They were soaked a bright red, so red that the original color of the flower was unrecognizable. Bokuto muffled his coughing with a hand over his mouth so that no one would be able to hear him. The choking and heaving continued for well over a minute. Every time Bokuto moved his hand to gasp for air, bloody petals would fall from his lips onto the floor with a soft 'plop'.

Akaashi had only heard stories of people with late stage Hanahaki Disease, but what he witnessed in the locker room matched what he had heard. He had wondered why Bokuto didn't choose to confess to his crush as soon as he contracted the disease. He wondered why Bokuto had held off on receiving treatment for this long. But he didn't wonder who Bokuto's crush was in the first place. It was none of his business, would never be his business.

When Bokuto's coughs became dry, devoid of flowers, he cleaned up the petals that stained the floor with a damp paper towel, making sure to dispose of the evidence before anyone walked in the next morning. He took a few deep breaths, in, then out, until he regained his composure and the heaving had completely subsided.

Akaashi dashed outside the locker room when Bokuto glanced towards the door, moving his feet as quickly and quietly as they would take him. When Bokuto exited the locker room, he gave Akaashi a cheerful wave and his widest grin.

"Akaashi!! Did you stay just to wait for me?" Bokuto asked. The ragged breaths that escaped from his mouth earlier were replaced with hearty laughter. The blood dripping from the corner of his lips was wiped clean.

"I just forgot a book in my locker," Akaashi said, as if he hadn't seen the mess of wet petals that were once on the floor.

That day, Akaashi never asked Bokuto if everything was all right; it wasn't his place to ask. He saw himself as just another one of Bokuto's teammates. He saw himself as just a familiar face, not a close friend, and certainly not someone Bokuto should confide in.

But now Akaashi wondered if Bokuto ever felt something more for him than he did now.

If he was responsible for the pain Bokuto had to endure.

If he was the reason for the operation.

Worst of all, Akaashi wondered if he _wanted_ to be the person behind Bokuto's past love.

Against his better judgment, Akaashi brought up the subject during the middle of practice on an ordinary day. Spiking practice had hit a short-lived lull when the team had gone through all of the volleyballs in their reserve of baskets. As they gathered the balls strewn across the gymnasium floor, Akaashi asked the question to Bokuto as easy as breathing.

"Bokuto-san, do you like anyone?"

"Hmm..." Bokuto crossed his arms as the cogs in his head started turning. "Nope! Can't think of a single person."

Akaashi ignored the pressure in his chest and the faint taste of camellias in his throat. He replied with a simple, "I see."

He again ignored the sinking feeling in his stomach when Bokuto gasped, eyes turning wide with not hope, but plain curiosity. "Akaashiiii! Are you asking me for _love advice_?"

"No, Bokuto-san," he said.

"All right, buddy," Bokuto hummed. He slapped Akaashi on the back; Akaashi fought the urge to cough up the muck in his lungs. "But if you ever wanna talk, I'm your man!"

Akaashi never replied.

After practice ended, and Bokuto had left the locker room to go home, Akaashi coughed up a single white petal, free from blood. He neatly wrapped it in a tissue before tossing it into the trash. Before he left for the night, he pulled his planner out of his bag, scribbling a reminder to book a doctor's appointment later that week. He never wished Bokuto went through with the actions leading up until now, but he would follow his example anyway.

Just like the boy he loved, he didn't want to remember what could have been, and what would never be.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this ended up angst af. Whoops.
> 
> Hope you liked it anyway!
> 
> [tumblr](http://courtto.tumblr.com/)


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